California Apparel News

It’s a familiar tale. A young apparel designer comes up with a fresh idea for a clothing line and in no time lands plenty of press, thanks to placement in influential retail boutiques and a following among hot, young celebrities.

But moving beyond this first wave of publicity is difficult. Many young clothing companies find that after their first 15 minutes of fame, the real challenge is figuring out how to run with it.

That’s where Greg Lorber and Cobi Levy come in. Last year, the two local businessmen formed Townhouse LLC, a small company meant to incubate new labels created by young and talented Los Angeles designers.

“Our company is about taking the ideas of the younger generation and providing them a platform they can use to present [them] to a broader audience beyond their home circle,” said Lorber, who also is vice president of sales and marketing at Lorber Industries, the 37-year-old textile company started by his father, Arnold. “We believe if we are creative, we can make products here in the United States, pay a fair wage and keep jobs here. Under these circumstances, we can deliver new products every month and not worry about China.”

Their first test case is Los Angeles–based Primp, founded in 2004 by Wells Butler and co-designer Emily Kersman, both recent graduates of the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Los Angeles.

Their ’80s-inspired contemporary line of fleece tops and bottoms and knit miniskirts, dresses and tops took off quickly at Los Angeles–area boutiques, including Dari, Brunette and Lisa Kline. Before long, celebrities such as Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton were spotted wearing Primp’s miniskirts and bright hoodies, made of cotton fleece and splashed with a dash of color.

Last October, Lorber and Levy became Primp’s business partners with the idea of helping the company grow from a local phenomenon to a national name.

“They have definitely helped with the growth of the company,” said 27-year-old Butler. “I am more of a creative, left-brain person. It helps to have that element of right-brain thinking to keep things organized and on track.”

Levy anticipates that Primp’s revenue will approach $3 million to $5 million this year after a successful showing at the recent Pool Trade Show in Las Vegas.

“Wells is your typical L.A. fashion story. She was a young designer with a great idea and didn’t have the wherewithal to execute it but got enough buzz to get her line out there,” said Levy, who also has his own cosmopolitan street line for men, called Tyler Speed.

Levy discovered the Primp collection at the S.A.M. showroom, the same New Mart showroom that represents his collection. Talking to Sharyn Gold, who runs the showroom, he learned that Primp needed someone to help blaze a trail to success.

“I called Wells, and we hit it off,” Levy explained. “So we came in to do all the back-office work and to offer management and vision. Wells can then do her design.”

Kersman has since left Primp to form another line with young designer Noelle Vazzano. Their new line, called Emilynoelle, will debut for Fall 2005.

Help is out there

Companies that incubate new enterprises are nothing new. It’s done all the time with Web start-ups and small businesses. But it is rarer in the fashion world. Most Los Angeles fashion-related incubators are nonprofits that rely on grants and donations to help struggling fashion designers. Fashion Business Inc., with offices in The New Mart in Los Angeles’ Fashion District, was started seven years ago by Frances Harder, a designer and former professor at the Otis College of Art & Design in Los Angeles.

FBI’s goal is to help new fashion companies become successful. The organization hosts seminars on various subjects, ranging from how to grow a profitable apparel company to costing for profit. It also has classes and a resource center and can provide consulting services funded by a $100,000 grant.

In addition, the California Fashion Association, the nonprofit established in the mid-1990s and headed by Ilse Metchek, organizes a host of seminars to help apparel companies—both small and large—manage their business. Seminars range from sourcing overseas to labor law compliance.

Opportunities and pitfalls

But Townhouse is one of the few for-profit Los Angeles incubators that deals exclusively with the apparel business. Townhouse is in talks with two other labels the company might back.

“I saw an opportunity there,” said Lorber, whose Gardena, Calif.–based textile company is providing office space for Townhouse and Primp and sharing its warehouse and shipping facilities.

Primp’s line is sewn by three Los Angeles contractors, including Cherish International, run by Victor Kim and his family. Kim also has been helping out young designers by sewing their samples and lines and providing back-office services in shipping and customer relations.

Primp is buying fabric from Lorber Industries. But Greg Lorber emphasized that the incubating company is not a way to keep his family’s textile company in business.

“This is not a textile company going after apparel product to resolve its textile needs,” said Lorber, noting that Lorber Industries’ revenues are about $80 million a year. Any new revenue from a young company makes up a small percentage of the business’s sales, he said.

“I have witnessed probably 15 other textile companies that have gotten into large-scale apparel manufacturing and have lost the entire focus of their company,” Lorber said. “It is not what we want to do, and it is not Lorber’s core competency.”

That is a lesson learned by Stony Apparel, a Los Angeles juniors apparel company. About five years ago, Stony attempted to help out another young juniors company, whose label was called Trixxi.

Steve Maiman, a partner in Stony Apparel, said the incubating process took too much time and money away from his company’s own expansion. “We had to provide production and pattern-making and everything else. It was like running a separate company,” he recalled.

Trixxi eventually split off from Stony, and Maiman is not rushing to find another company to incubate. “It worked great for the incubatee, but for the incubator it wasn’t great,” he said.